Arsenic in Drinking Water Toxicological Risk Assessment in the North Region of Burkina Faso
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Journal of Water Resource and Protection, 2013, 5, 46-52 http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jwarp.2013.58A007 Published Online August 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/jwarp) Arsenic in Drinking Water Toxicological Risk Assessment in the North Region of Burkina Faso Jean Fidèle Nzihou1*, Médard Bouda2, Salou Hamidou3, Jean Diarra4 1École Normale Supérieure/Université de Koudougou, Koudougou, Burkina Faso 2Institut de Recherche en Mine et Environnement, Université de Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Rouyn-Noranda, Canada 3Université Catholique de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (UCAO), Unité Universitaire à Bobo-Dioulasso, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso 4Institut de Génie de l’Environnement et du Développement Durable/Université de Ouagadougou, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Email: *[email protected] Received February 4, 2013; revised March 6, 2013; accepted April 2, 2013 Copyright © 2013 Jean Fidèle Nzihou et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution Li- cense, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT Human health risks assessment were estimated by determining the nature and probability of adverse health effects in the North region’s populations who are now exposed to arsenic from drinking water or will be exposed in the future. Sev- eral questions were addressed in this study: what types of health problems may be caused by arsenic from drinking wa- ter? What is the chance that people will experience health problems when exposed to different levels of arsenic? What arsenic level are people exposed to and for how long? To answers these questions we have first identified the hazard by evaluating arsenic concentration in thirty-four (34) bore-hole water points among the region based on the assumption of clinical cases related to drinking water. Arsenic concentration ranged from 0 up to 87.8 micrograms per liter. Next we assessed the dose-response of exposure to arsenic. Dose-response relationship describes how the likelihood and severity of adverse health effects are related to the amount and condition of exposure to arsenic. This required us to choose tox- icity reference values (TRVs) above which adverse effects may occur for noncarcinogenic and for carcinogenic effects. Exposure factors have been calculated in two scenarios: people from 0 to 14 years old and people from 15 to 70 years. Exposure has been estimated indirectly through consideration of measured concentrations of arsenic in drinking water. This study show that people in the Yatenga, Zondoma and Passore provinces are at very high risk for developing sev- eral pathologies such as hyper pigmentation, keratosis, cancer, etc. due by chronic exposure to arsenic in drinking wa- ter. Keywords: Arsenic Poisoning; Toxicity Reference Value; Risk Assessment; Carcinogenic Effect; Exposure Factor 1. Introduction this obvious problem of water scarcity in this region, there is also another due to remarkable pollution of ground- The North region, one of the thirteen (13) of Burkina water. The rainfall is insufficient and erratic with annual Faso, has many economic and cultural potentialities. But precipitation of around 600 to 700 mm. Banks dams are it faces an acute lack of drinking water. Indeed, access to operated seasonally for market gardening activities and drinking water poses a major problem to the population rivers are increasingly solicited by gold mining, mercury both for its quality and its management. All water sources and cyanide are even used in the artisanal extraction of are exploited in order to meet the needs of drinking water. gold and this in the beds of rivers. There is a growing This region had respectively 51,595,875 and 6292 mod- concern about the scale of anthropogenic pollution in this ern water access points but only 9,401,074 and 1129 of region. these were permanents respectively for years 2007, 2009 In these fifteen (15) years, the appearance of clinical and 2011 [1]. It appears that for drilling and large di- cases of hyperkeratosis, hyper pigmentation and ne- ameter wells, with a population of 1,185,796 inhabi- crotizing ulcerative tumor in some villages in the North tants (2006 census), here is an average of 205 people by region have attracted the attention of public authorities a modern water access point. Yet this estimation doesn’t on the issue of diseases from water. Therefore the dif- take in account the grown of the population. Apart from ferent structures of the ministries of water, health, envi- *Corresponding author. ronment and development partners (DANIDA, UNICEF, Copyright © 2013 SciRes. JWARP J. F. NZIHOU ET AL. 47 WHO) are highly involved in resolving this problem. The work reported in reference [2] has revealed the presence of arsenic in 159 tube-wells water at concentrations above the current standard of 50 μg·L−1 in Burkina Faso. Groundwater contamination by arsenic levels is up to 1630 μg·L−1 due to mining activities having been meas- ured [3]. The analysis and epidemiological study re- ported in reference [4] has established a high correlation between the presence of Arsenic in patients’ urines and the concentration of Arsenic in their source of drinking water in Yatenga, one of the four provinces of the North region. Solution to this problem was supposed to drill 100 new bore-hole in order to replace access point above national standards. But reference [1] indicates that only 55 new permanents water access points were created Figure 1. Delimitation of the North region. between 2009 and 2011. Maybe the situation has wors- ened in the meanwhile. After the newsworthy effect due from September 2006 to December 2006. The sampling to death caused by Arsenic contaminated water, Arsenic period may seem short and old. But it was shown that probably continues to silently endanger the health and “The arsenic content in water decreases with the produc- kill people in the North region of Burkina Faso. The tivity of drilling, but arsenic content in water content above facts raised the following questions: change from one site to another” [6]. Conclusion was What are the levels populations’ exposure to arsenic? also made that “it is the geological context which the From drinking water in the North region of Burkina source of arsenic level in groundwater”. Besides “Arse- Faso? nic contamination of groundwater has been found to oc- What are the effects of arsenic on human health? cur due to geothermal influence to groundwater, mineral What health risk does undertake population when it is dissolution (e.g., pyrite oxidation), desorption in the oxi- not possible to close an arsenic contaminated water ac- dizing environment and reductive desorption and disso- cess point? lution” [7,8]. The present study addresses these issues through a Several sampling points were selected based on the quantitative heal risk assessment based on data collected following criteria: in the region. The study aims to predict in the medium Proximity to risk areas based on the assumption of and long run what health risk does encounter populations clinical cases; of this region exposed to arsenic in drinking water. Location and clear name (no ambiguity) of the sam- pling points; 2. Materials and Methods Easy access to the sampling points. Each sample was labeled with the following informa- 2.1. Study Area tion: the name of the operator, identification number of The North Region is located in the northern part of the sample, sampling point location, sampling date and Burkina Faso and extend between latitudes 12˚38' and nature (surface water or groundwater). Physical parame- 14˚18' North and longitude 1˚33' and 2˚55' West [5]. The ters such as, alkalinity, electrical conductivity (Eh), dis- region is bordered by the republic of Mali at the north solved oxygen and temperature were measure din situ and five other regions of Burkina Faso, namely: Sahel, (during sampling) to avoid their alteration, even well Central North, Central Plateau, Central West and Mou- preserved before arriving at the laboratory. houn respectively at the north-east, east, south and west Laboratory analysis of the samples was done using: as depicted in Figure 1. An automatic absorption spectrometer (AAS) graph- ite furnace for the determination of aluminum, cad- 2.2. Sampling mium, chromium, nickel and lead. Automatic dosing of the sample is done in the graphite AAS furnace. Samples were collected from the four (4) provinces of Thereafter there is a direct determination of the con- the North region. Random sampling was used and no rule centration of each element using a calibration curve, has been followed in relation to the space distribution of or from the specific absorbance of each element using the sampled points. Thus, the number of samples per the spectrometer is equipped with a background cor- province does not depend on the size of the province, but rection system continuously after performing a cor- the presumption of clinical cases. Samples were collected rection to the non-specific absorbance. Copyright © 2013 SciRes. JWARP 48 J. F. NZIHOU ET AL. A FIAS (Flow Injection for Atomic Spectroscopy) Among all these TRVs, we have taken the sixth, which system for the determination of arsenic, mercury and is 7×10−5 mg·kg−1·d−1. For selecting the TRV we used the selenium. Before the analysis of mercury, the subset study reported in reference [9]. TRV selection criteria of sample is digested with nitric acid under the pres- from this study are: sure of one bar. And, for the analysis of arsenic, the TRV obtained from the most recent study know to us. subset of sample is reduced with chlorine acid (HCl), Study conducted over a long period of 6 months to ascorbic acid and potassium iodine in an oven. The 33 years for arsenic concentrations <10 mg·L−1 and −1 test sample is introduced into the feedback loop and >229 mg·L .